Saturday, January 5, 2013

NBA 2K13 Roster Analysis 1/5/13

Fifteen players had attributes adjusted by 2K Sports in Saturday morning's roster update. Many fans (including this one) were highly critical of 2K Sports releasing an update after two weeks and not updating any player's ratings. It's nice to see the company make a quick response.

With that said, if the company can edit 15 players in one day, what is so hard about doing that EVERY SINGLE DAY? The product would be considerably better off, and the ratings that I've been griping about for years would finally be attended to.

Sanders has been a shot blocking machine since entering the league, and absolutely deserves the maximum rating of 99. His 8.9 BLK% last season would have ranked 2nd behind Serge Ibaka had he qualified, but for whatever reason 2K continues to play it conservative here. Sanders and Ibaka are on another level compared to the rest of the league when it comes to shot blocking. 2K doesn't have a problem inflating the block ratings of many power forwards (Gasol 80, Aldridge 74, Bargnani 70) but when it comes to the players who deserve it, I guess it's because they don't score enough points (worried more about overall rating rather than actual game performance).

Sanders didn't deserve the ORB increase but deserved a larger DRB increase. His DRB% merits a rating in the 90s. Given how poor Sanders shoots away from the rim, he didn't need Close/Medium increases. Aside from that, the rest of his increases are fine, and a welcome sight for Bucks fans.

Given that Vasquez has the second best assist rate in the NBA, it would have been nice to see him with a slightly higher Pass rating than 85. Consistency jumping to 75 is a bit puzzling, as Vasquez has had just as many bad games as he has good (though lately it's mostly been good).

I am quite torn on what to think of J.R. Smith and these rating changes. On one hand, the stats-based ratings are fine, but on the other, by raising speed and quickness it is now possible to use J.R. Smith at the PG spot in the game to devastating effect. Smith is athletic, but he's not prime Dwyane Wade athletic.

As with Vasquez, I don't really like Smith with a high consistency rating due to how erratic he is. His last 9 games have been very good (23.3 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 3.6 apg, 46.1 FG%), but the 12 games prior to that were not (12.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 2.3 apg, 36.2 FG%).

Vucevic has long been underrated, dating back to last season. However, his 68 Overall is still very low for a player who has proven himself to be an adequate starting center.
There was no reason for Close shot rating to go down. Overrated based on last season, but appropriate for this season's performance.
Offensive Rebounding was underrated dating back to last season, which was fixed.
Defensive Rebounding was underrated last season, and while it was raised to 75, that is still slightly underrated going by last year's numbers... which means it is drastically underrated going by this season. A top 10 defensive rebounder who just pulled down 29 rebounds in a game (18 defensive) has a mere 75 rating (given to an average rebounding PF/C).

Williams saw his shooting percentages tank hard as soon as he joined the Nets, which is the main reason why former coach Avery Johnson is out of town. More disturbing however, was the drop in his assist rate this season. While this can be attributed to Joe Johnson taking some of Deron's ball handling responsibility, it's clear that less offensive responsibility hasn't yielded better results for Deron's shot either.

Like many fans, my jaw quickly dropped when I saw Lopez's rating had DROPPED rather than gone up. Lopez is playing at an all-star level and is quite easily the best offensive center in the league. PER isn't an end-all be-all stat, but anytime a player sees theirs go up SIX POINTS it signifies vast improvement (Reference point: Carmelo Anthony's career high 26.7 PER this season, up from last season's 21.1 and his 20.6 career average).

Part of the problem is that Lopez had so many ratings that he was very overrated coming into the season. 89 Block, 82 OffReb, 68 DefReb were all drastically overrated entering the year. Those ratings are appropriate NOW, which means 2K should not be improving upon them. The reality is that if Lopez were properly rated in the first place, his Overall rating would be +7 instead of -1.

On the surface, the changes 2K did make seen relatively fair by their standards.
While Lopez's Inside shot rating was grossly overrated when looking at his 2011 numbers, he has shown significant improvement here and the decrease was more than what was warranted. A quick glance at Nikola Vucevic's production will clearly illustrate the discrepancy 2K has with consistently following their rating formulas.
Meanwhile the decrease to his Close shot rating was appropriate, though clearly was underrated entering the year.

As with most 2K ratings though, it's not about what they DID change, but rather what THEY DIDN'T.

It is frankly the definition of incompetence that 2K would give 75 Consistency to Greivis Vasquez and J.R. Smith but leave Brook Lopez at 70 Consistency. Lopez is averaging 19 points in only 29 minutes (23 points per 36 mins), shoots 52% from the field on a high volume of shots, and has failed to score in double figures only three times all season despite playing fewer minutes than Vasquez or Smith.

Lopez is a legit 20 point scorer at the position it is hardest to score 20 points at, yet has only 81 Offensive Awareness (originally 79 entering the year). Compare this to Rudy Gay (86), Luol Deng (83), or Andrea Bargnani (82, which is DOWN from the 89 he started the season with)

All 2K would have had to do is appropriately adjust those two ratings, and Lopez's overall rating wouldn't have dropped - in fact it might have gone up a point. They could have spared themselves the ire of the growing number of fans who realize just how poor 2K's roster efforts are. Instead, well, you know the story by now.

Everytime Iguodala drains a contested mid-range jumper against me online I want to stab this game in the face, given his awful production last season. He's shot better this season, but the rating obviously still needed to go down some. Close/Med could have gone down further though, as it's not like Iguodala has scored much over the last 2-3 years... and not to harp on the point about Lopez's 70 Consistency any further, but Sixers and Nuggets fans WISH Iguodala were HALF that consistent.

Might as well be consistent and stick with the theme. 75 Consistency????? Gallinari had a season high 28 points, followed it up with a 1-10 game, had 12 points the next night, and then had another 1-10 game on Christmas Day. Two games later he scores a season high 39 points.... then follows it up with 7 points on 2-8 shooting. CONSISTENCY???????

With that said, most of Gallinari's changes are welcome, given that he was underrated for three years or so. Maybe someday they'll get around to lowering Wilson Chandler's rating... you know, that guy whose been backing him up since New York.

As a testament to how poorly Stephenson was rated AND how unbalanced 2K's rating system is, Stephenson had 4 attributes adjusted over the past two days and saw his overall rating jump 10 points.

Don't be too quick to pat 2K Sports on the back though - Stephenson still has a paltry 47 Free Throw, 50 Ball Security, 25 Consistency, and 39 Hustle rating. They didn't watch him play, or even look at the rest of his ratings. They just fixed the ones fans complained about most (3pt and Pass) while throwing in their customary Awareness bumps.

I cannot stress enough how huge it is that Harden is drilling threes off the dribble at such a good clip. His ability to pull up from distance is the primary reason he's been the most efficient Pick and Roll scorer in the league this season (1.11 Points Per Possession via Synergy Sports).

With that said, Harden's Shoot Off Dribble rating should EASILY be rated higher than other highly touted superstar players.

There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the block ratings in this game and it's because 2K openly defies using their own formula. I guess they decided they couldn't remember which block formula they were using this week so they decided to make Morris the happy medium between Dirk and Boozer.

You know what else is crazy to me? How 2K was so conservative with Sanders, Vucevic, and Hickson yet they had no trouble boosting Lee's defensive rebound rating (which was overrated to begin with!) due to his popularity.

Strange that Curry's pass rating would go up when his assist rate has gone down (his 3.3 Assist to Bad Pass Ratio is also well below average for a PG).

Rashidi's Rating: 83
Position Rank: 9th

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COACHING CHANGES?

Avery Johnson is still coach of the Brooklyn Nets. Since everyone just got back from holiday break, I assume there wasn't enough time to program in P.J. Carlesimo (who will probably last through the remainder of the season).

McGuire was waived by the Hornets yesterday afternoon. 2K still has him on the active roster over Al-Farouq Aminu.

While the move is not yet official, the Bulls are in the process of signing Daequan Cook who just cleared waivers.

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INCORRECT LINEUPS

CAVALIERS
Kyrie Irving (PG), Dion Waiters (SG), Alonzo Gee (SF), Tristan Thompson (PF), Tyler Zeller (C)
Dion Waiters has played his last two games off the bench, reprising the sixth man role he played at Syracuse. C.J. Miles moved to the starting lineup, as he's played much better in that role.

KNICKS
Jason Kidd (PG), Ronnie Brewer (SG), Carmelo Anthony (SF), Amare Stoudemire (PF), Tyson Chandler (C)
It has been widely reportedthat Amare Stoudemire will be coming off the bench for the foreseeable future. Marcus Camby has been starting (and prior to that, Kurt Thomas). A bit mind-boggling why 2K would start him when they are bringing Dirk Nowitzki off the Mavericks bench.